404 CORRESPONDENCE. [1853, 



I do not wonder that you feel a little nervous about 

 the result of the experiment at Oxford. I can well 

 understand it, and if I were an Oxford man, which I 

 should count it a high honor to have been, I should 

 share the feeling. I count it an excellent thing that 

 the new enactments were framed by friendly hands, and 

 are not very sweeping. As far as I can judge from 

 the election of the present council, those of the Move- 

 ment party by no means have it all their own way. 



It seems to me that the admission of Dissenters to 

 the A. B. degree is a wise measure, and one that will 

 do no harm to the university nor the church. But 

 I see not how they can go further. It would not be 

 right that they should pass to the A. M. and share in 

 the government of the university. 



Any position at Oxford or Cambridge which allows 

 of matrimony must be a desirable one for a person 

 of scholarly pursuits. I can hardly think you will 

 pass your life at Whatley, but trust you will have 

 some better preferment and a wider field of duty be- 

 fore long, before Mrs. Gray and myself will be likely 

 to pay you the visit you kindly solicit, for I see no 

 near prospect of our revisiting England, though no- 

 thing would please us more. . . . 



TO GEORGE ENGELMANN. 



7th December, 1853. 



I got dreadfully behindhand with everything. 

 " Exploring Expedition Botany " stopped printing for 

 a long time, but is now renewed ; three hundred or 

 more pages are printed, and copy sent to printer up 

 to Leguminosae (excl.). Meanwhile, to look over 

 Brackenridge's manuscript of the Filices, to turn 

 a loose ungrammatical lingo into English, and his 



